Bay area foreclosures drop 10 percent in August

Foreclosures in August were nasty nationally, but a bit less troublesome in the Tampa Bay area. The region reported 5,298 foreclosure filings in August, down 10 percent from the 5,904 in August 2007 and 5,918 in July of this year, according to the firm RealtyTrac. The biggest improvement came in Pasco County, which had 37 percent fewer foreclosures this August than last. Only Pinellas County saw a year-to-year rise in foreclosures. They were up 25 percent. The Tampa area ranked 34th in the nation in foreclosures, with such defaults affecting one in 244 households. Of the 5,298 foreclosure cases in August, 588 were bank confiscations and 1,027 were notices of pending auctions. Nationally, foreclosures rose 27 percent in August from a year earlier.